Intrusive Ads on Android 8

[BikerBen]

I recently Purchased a new phone with Android 8 installed. Now I'm getting pop up ads, not from a specific app, but rather from android itself, or perhaps from Google Play. How do I stop these ads, some of which include a sound track, which can be quite intrusive and startling?

 

[Dannydet]

You can try out adguard in the play store or no root firewall. Each will filter out ads in browsers and installed apps

 

[Hadron]

How do you know that the ads are from "android itself"? There have been different forms of adware over the years that pop ads up intrusively, and rarely identify themselves as the cause (many of the worst types have been banned from the Play Store, but still exist in other places).

What phone do you have? That's probably more relevant than the Android version since Android 8 itself includes nothing that pushes ads, but that doesn't mean that the ROM of a particular phone doesn't include something that does (the ROMs of cheap Chinese clone phones are often full of adware). It won't be the operating system itself, but it might be a pre-installed app, in which case disabling it will stop the problem.

Otherwise, as Danny says, do what you can with an ad blocker.

 

[KBU2]

https://safety.google/privacy/ads-a...aai-64PlTZPtjU8H3WydQB9afGpb6FORoCe7sQAvD_BwE

 

[Laineypc]

You can try out adguard in the play store or no root firewall. Each will filter out ads in browsers and installed apps

I have this peoblem too. It runs independently of apps being used or browser. It's a free floating ad that pops up in pairs, first something that will "clean" your phone or optimize the battery, and the second is for any number of apps that appear to come from the play store.

 

[Hadron]

Yes, one of your apps contains something that is serving these ads. It's doing it outside of the app (which should be forbidden by play store rules as I recall) to make it harder for you to identify the app and uninstall it.

Anything you installed or updated in the few days before this started is a suspect. Try removing those you trust least one by one until it stops. But it is going to be an app you installed that is the culprit. There was a lot of this stuff a few years ago, and Google tightened up the rules, but there have been a number of reports recently that suggest that a new variant of that crap is appearing in some apps again.

 

[BikerBen]

Yes, one of your apps contains something that is serving these ads. It's doing it outside of the app (which should be forbidden by play store rules as I recall) to make it harder for you to identify the app and uninstall it.

Anything you installed or updated in the few days before this started is a suspect. Try removing those you trust least one by one until it stops. But it is going to be an app you installed that is the culprit. There was a lot of this stuff a few years ago, and Google tightened up the rules, but there have been a number of reports recently that suggest that a new variant of that crap is appearing in some apps again.

I recently Purchased a new phone with Android 8 installed. Now I'm getting pop up ads, not from a specific app, but rather from android itself, or perhaps from Google Play. How do I stop these ads, some of which include a sound track, which can be quite intrusive and startling?

Yes, one of your apps contains something that is serving these ads. It's doing it outside of the app (which should be forbidden by play store rules as I recall) to make it harder for you to identify the app and uninstall it.

Anything you installed or updated in the few days before this started is a suspect. Try removing those you trust least one by one until it stops. But it is going to be an app you installed that is the culprit. There was a lot of this stuff a few years ago, and Google tightened up the rules, but there have been a number of reports recently that suggest that a new variant of that crap is appearing in some apps again.

 

[BikerBen]

I no longer believe the ads have anything to do with Android 8, as I'm seeing the same thing on another phone running Android 6. Recently I was working in my garage, expecting a phone call. The phone was left on a workbench several feet away. When the phone rang, I rushed over to pick it up, only to be greeted with a full screen ad for Facebook. When I figured out how to clear this ad, I was immediately greeted with another ad, this time for NordVPN, which I also had to clear. The point is, I almost missed the call. My feeling is that these ads come from Google, since it makes no difference what app, if any, that I'm running, and the ads are not always for the same product. It just seems as though Android phones are becoming more a vehicle to push advertising, and less useful as a phone. Also,, why is it I purchase a phone with a certain amount of internal memory, only to find that I can't use at least a third of that memory because of included apps I'll never use, e.g. Facebook? I'd like to root my phone, but there seems to be no way to do that on my LG product. I'm beginning to think I might have to start considering Apple for my phone needs.

 

[Hadron]

Nope, the ads don't come from Google, because very few people have them. Heck, I'm using a Pixel (a Google phone) and have never seen anything like this, and have never seen anything like this on any of the android devices I've owned or any member of my family has owned. This isn't a normal feature of Android, it means you've got an adware app on your phone.

Apps from the Play Store are only supposed to display ads in-app, but every now and then we get some that break this rule and display them when other apps are running. It makes them harder to identify, and hence harder to remove, and hence more profitable while they last.

Suggestions: what apps do you have in common on the two devices? Have you installed apps from sources other than the Play Store (which would not be subject to the same rules)? Otherwise I'd suggest looking for apps that have the permission to draw over other apps. This has legitimate uses, so it's not a given that any app with this permission is guilty, but it's certainly something that would be useful to adware wanting to do this. Some security apps can scan app permissions and provide a summary of apps that have them. I have an app called Addons Detector installed, which has this ability (I originally installed this when a different adware add-on called "push notifications" became popular amongst the scummier app developers, before Google eventually banned that particular advertising SDK).

 

[chanchan05]

S9. No pop-up ads as well. Some apps do have aggressive ads that open independently of the app itself. For example, GO apps like GO SMS and GO Launcher are known for this. I experienced their aggressive ads around Android 4.

The only way these are related to the phone itself is if you bought from a manufacturer that includes ads in their phones themselves. Xiaomi for example ads apps to the firmware itself.